Internet users are often subjected to large quantities of ads. Many of these ads are graphical in nature, as graphics provide much information. However, graphical advertisements require more storage and take longer to transmit than small text advertisements. In addition, graphical advertisements can be distracting and intrusive.
Advertisers are motivated to make their advertisements catch people's attention. Accordingly, advertisements can be quite garish and obtrusive, forcing the user to wait or somehow take action. Users generally have little control over the display of these ads (other than to not visit certain web pages).
Such tactics frequently serve to annoy the user. As a result, online ad-blocking software has been developed. This software can prevent many types of ads from displaying on people's computers. The annoyance factor of ads today causes many people to not want to investigate what the ads are offering, even if they really offer something useful. Clearly, people are not happy with existing advertisements, such as graphical banners.
While existing systems allow advertisers to present graphics, they fail to provide effective and desirable advertisements that have a low annoyance factor for users. These and other drawbacks exist with current systems.